Through Ashes
by Whitefang1407
Summary: Under the belief that Sirius Black betrayed the Potters to Voldemort, Snape embarks on a hunt to bring Sirius to justice.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello all! This is my first Harry Potter fic, and I plan on it being just a few chapters. I hope to update it in a somewhat timely manner, but please bear with me, as my class schedule this semester is a bit taxing. This story is set right after the deaths of James and Lily (as well as the conversation with Dumbledore in which Snape agrees to help protect Harry). The quoted stanza at the end of this chapter is from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's _The Poets_. Please feel free to leave a review/comment! All rights go to J.K. Rowling. **

* * *

Severus Snape ascended the grassy slope that led to Hogwarts' doors and, as he drew nearer to the castle's entrance, he found with some surprise that Dumbledore was already outside. The older wizard was pacing fretfully back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back as he muttered something that was lost to the wind.

"You were expecting me?" Severus startled him out of whatever thoughts he had been absorbed in; he stopped his pacing and turned his eyes to the dark figure before him.

"Oh no, I simply thought a bit of fresh air would do me some good. As quaint as my office is, I'm afraid it feels a bit suffocating now and then." At this he paused, and a strange, distant look crossed his face, as though he had forgotten that Severus was there.

Snape narrowed his eyes, but before he could speak, Dumbledore returned from his reverie. "I must say that I am surprised to see you again so soon, Severus. But no matter—I assume that there is something you need from me, and desperately so, or it could have waited until morning. Walk with me." He turned and started out across the grass without waiting for Snape to follow. Severus suppressed his irritation and caught up in a few strides, cutting a sideways glare at the old man as he matched his pace.

"I have come for information. Earlier this evening you mentioned that Lil—that the Potters put their trust in the wrong person." Dumbledore gave no response, although Snape caught a brief glint of something—regret, perhaps?—flash behind his half-moon glasses. The ground began to level out; they were approaching the Black Lake.

Severus did not look at the tree, although he knew it was there, just down the shoreline, a painful reminder of one of his worst memories. He set his face to the water instead.

"Their Secret Keeper, Dumbledore. Who was it?" Again, no response. Dumbledore continued walking until he reached the edge of the water, where it lapped mournfully against the shore. A breeze caught his beard and lifted it slightly off his chest. Snape leveled his black gaze on him again, waiting for an answer. "Tell me, Albus," he growled, and his bass-toned voice was quiet but forceful, a thin cover that precariously masked the torrent of emotions he so desperately did not want to feel.

After some time, Dumbledore sighed heavily and looked up into the sky, searching for the brightness of a moon that was shrouded in darkness. "I know that you have suffered a great loss tonight, Severus, but the Aurors are more than capable—"

"Do not pretend to understand what I have suffered, Dumbledore. It is insulting."

"Perhaps you should consider the consequences of what you plan to do with this information—"

Severus spun with sudden force to face Dumbledore straight on, his robes billowing around him like a gathering storm. "Consequences? Tell me, what could be worse than the punishment I have already received? This Secret Keeper, this betrayer, deserves what's coming. Azkaban is too light a sentence, and unlike yourself, I do not trust the Aurors to do what needs to be done." His black eyes glittered with fury; the older wizard watched him with a surprising measure of calm, waiting for a moment before replying. Again, he sighed.

"I don't doubt your abilities, Severus. Indeed, I'm sure that you are more than capable of finding this person before the Aurors do. It is your motives—and what you plan to do once you have succeeded—that concern me."

"I hardly care whether they concern you or not." Severus looked out over the water again, his face etched with the hard lines of sleeplessness and determination, giving him the appearance of a much older man. For what seemed like the thousandth time, he began sifting through the most probable candidates in his head. Pettigrew had no spine, Hagrid was too kind and therefore too vulnerable, and both of the Longbottoms had been tortured into madness. The other members of the Order were unlikely to have been chosen; they had never been as close to the Potters as the Longbottoms or James' wretched Marauders.

Snape speculated that it had to be either Lupin or Black. Before he voiced the question, though, Dumbledore confirmed his suspicion.

"Sirius Black," he said, so quietly that it was almost a whisper. "Sirius Black betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort."

Snape's face twisted into a sneer as he turned to leave. _Black_. He should have known—the rotten prat. Out of all of the Marauders (aside from Potter, of course), Black had been a particularly sharp thorn in his side. When he found him—and he _would_ find him—there would be no mercy, no second chances, no holding back. Not because of what he had done to Severus (although that warranted more than a few curses), but because of what he had done to Lily.

He was several strides away when he heard Dumbledore raise his voice again. "Severus," he said, and Snape caught the precarious balance of sorrow and warning in his tone, "killing him will not bring her back."

 _Red hair and splintered wood and green eyes forever shut_.

Snape paused but did not turn around. There, on the shore, he looked very much like a raven or a bat, his cloak wrapped about him like a pair of black wings. Then he, too, looked up at the sky, but he knew that to search for the moon would be futile; its light was gone, hidden, dead. And so he saw only what he expected to see: darkness. "No," he said, so softly that it was caught and taken by the wind. "Nothing will." He had strayed close to the water; the remnants of a small wave slipped across the sand, dampening the grains beneath his shoe and taking some back into the lake when it receded. Severus watched the exchange in silence for a moment before he addressed Dumbledore again. "I wish to bury her," he said, loud enough this time that the wind did not conceal his voice. It was not a question or a request, but a simple statement; he was not quite sure, exactly, what prompted him to say it—after all, it was not something that the old man needed to know, not really—but he turned so that he could gauge Dumbledore's reply.

"I believe the muggle authorities have already taken the...bodies. Have they not?" His blue-grey robes shimmered in the darkness; Severus could not see his expression, but he heard when the old man's breath hitched.

"Yes." He hesitated, but only briefly. "They are being kept at a facility in Godric's Hollow."

Dumbledore did not ask how Snape knew that. Another gust of wind tugged at his beard, lifting it up and sideways, toward the lake. "Ah. Then they will likely defer to the next of kin... Lily's sister, perhaps?"

Severus scoffed. "That daft woman hasn't taken an interest in Lily's life since we were children. Why would she take an interest in her death?" He realized with a pang that he didn't know that for sure, not anymore, but he didn't care.

"Mmm. I assume you plan on using occlumency?"

"Obviously."

"And what of James?"

Snape's eyes flashed angrily in the darkness. He lifted his chin, just slightly, a few black tendrils of hair swept across his face by the wind. "I will take him as well." He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and cold. "For Lily."

* * *

Dumbledore watched as Snape took his leave, following the shoreline for a while longer before striking off toward the nearest boundary to Hogwarts' grounds. There was a distant _crack_ as he disapparated, and old wizard was left with the quiet hush of the wind and that mournful lapping of the waves against the shore.

"Not in the clamor of the crowded street / Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng / But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat," Dumbledore murmured. Then he sighed once, deeply, and turned and made his way back to the castle, through the corridors and up into his office, where a mountain of paperwork and a dish of lemon drops awaited him.


	2. Chapter 2

Snape moved through the cobbled streets of Diagon Alley like a shadow, utilizing the tapestry of various—albeit small—crowds of wizards who flitted about the shops as a maze through which he navigated with the skillful ease of someone who was used to avoiding unwanted attention. Because he had very little to begin his search with, Severus had elected to start in a well-populated area; gossip and secrets were traded almost as generously as currency, after all, and he surmised that the news about the Potters had already begun to spread. And so he moved, and he listened.

"Is it really true?" He passed by a plump witch in a lavishly-embroidered green robe who was speaking in hushed tones to three other witches, who were leaning forward to hear her. "Is he really gone? You-Know-Who?" Severus heard their voices receding, though he slowed his pace in order to catch the remnants of the conversation.

"Yes, I heard it from Stanley just moments ago. Can you believe it?"

"I hear they are bringing out all of the fireworks in Diagon Alley to celebrate tonight."

"And rightly so! Oh, to finally be free from such tyranny...I just can't fathom it."

Snape avoided a large gap between groups by slipping over to the side of the street, where various overhangs and awnings cast shadows across the ground and further concealed his dark figure. A man with slightly bent glasses and an unruly head of wiry grey hair stepped out of a shop just feet in front of him, however, and raised his voice above the crowd; Severus was forced to stopped short.

"All items are thirty percent off today, sirs and madams!" The shopkeeper called, smiling widely. "It is a day to celebrate!" Cheers erupted in the streets.

 _Good. The greater the commotion, the easier it will be to navigate through these fools unnoticed_ , Severus thought, and moved to go around the shop owner.

"Say," the man said, watching Snape carefully, "You have a certain look about you, with those black robes…." Severus caught the quickening suspicion and hostility in his tone and did not hesitate.

 _Obliviate_. He removed the fleeting memory of himself from the man's mind with practiced ease, leaving him with a slightly dazed—though content—expression as Snape disappeared back into the crowd.

The level of noise seemed to be raising exponentially by the moment. Such was the clamor that Severus had to strain to make out conversations unless they were within a radius of a few feet; he moved fluidly through the masses, his black eyes glittering with cold concentration. Snippets of dialogue came at him like driving rain, and he plunged forward and through the downpour of sound, listening for anything of meaning.

"What a lovely hat that is, my dear! Wherever did you get it?"

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is vanquished! I thought it would never—"

"I'm sorry, but that is simply too overpriced—"

"Come now, love. Let's buy Jana that broom she's been wanting. Today would be the perfect—"

"It's a shame, you know, about the Potters. Such upstanding members of the wizarding community. Lily Potter, especially...So kind…."

 _Red hair and splintered wood and green eyes forever shut_.

Snape blinked once, tightly, to rid himself of the unwelcome image and the resulting painful knot in his chest; it came so quickly and so fiercely that he had to consciously keep himself from clutching the black thread of his robes just above the approximate area where his heart was, deep down, concealed by layers of marrow and bone and flesh and fabric. Carefully, meticulously, he enclosed the memory behind a wall of safeguards in his mind: the exact temperature at which a Dreamless Sleep potion must boil; the number and direction of turns required when stirring Draught of Living Death; the subtle triumph of brewing a potion to absolute perfection; a young, red-haired girl on a park swing. Then, pressing his lips together in a pale line, Severus straightened his back and pretended to take an interest in an owl for sale outside of a nearby shop. It was a large bird with sleek, dappled brown feathers and a handsome set of black tufts atop its head. It peered out at him with an indifferent expression, golden-orange eyes locking with Snape's black. Severus rested one hand against the cage as he eavesdropped on the conversation to his right.

"A shame, indeed," replied a dark-haired wizard in periwinkle robes. The owl angled its head to the side; Severus raised an eyebrow in response. "And to think of their poor boy—orphaned!"

"Oh, and that isn't all. I hear they were in hiding when a so-called friend betrayed them to You-Know-Who!"

"No! Who was it?"

Snape's grip on the cage tightened; he took in a long, measured breath, struggling to contain the disgust that was quickly rising in his chest. _Say it_ , he silently willed. _Say his wretched, cowardly name. Let the world know that he is the betrayer._ The owl closed its eyes once, slowly, and released a soft _hoot_ , pulling Severus from his thoughts. He loosened his grip on the bars apologetically.

"That, I don't know. I do hope this person has been apprehended by now, though…."

Just as Snape huffed a sigh of irritation and turned to continue on his way, a blurry mass of black fur and flying spit came barreling past him, close enough to knock him off balance and send him stumbling ungraciously backward against the owl's cage. The large bird flapped its wings in frantic surprise; he felt the miniature gusts of air batting against the back of his head, and he quickly righted himself. "How irritating," he muttered, brushing off his robes, and the owl clicked its beak in response. Severus caught sight of the offender down the street, a large, unruly black dog, as it knocked over an unsuspecting witch and disappeared around the corner. He sighed again and moved on through the crowd; the owl, now thoroughly awake, released another soft _hoot_ and began preening its feathers for the third time that morning.

* * *

It was well into the afternoon by the time Severus descended into Knockturn Alley (that is to say, it always _seemed_ as though one was descending, although the narrow pathway was actually quite level). His eavesdropping in Diagon Alley had turned up no leads; most witches and wizards were so relieved by the prospect of Voldemort's end that they could do nothing but celebrate, and after hours of weaving between people and conversations and a suffocating air of raw, unsullied excitement, Snape had decided to try a change of location.

As it turned out, he should have done so in the first place.

There was an outburst of noise down the street; Severus heard shouting followed by the unmistakable _crack_ of a destructive spell colliding with brick wall. The few shifty wizards and witches who speckled the street were quickly dispersing. Through the throng, Snape caught a flicker of white-blonde hair and black robes.

 _Malfoy_. _How utterly predictable_. Severus released a snort and began moving forward, wondering who the pompous dark wizard had attacked. It was possible that Malfoy had information about Black; he was, after all, quite high in Voldemort's ranks.

A jet of red light spun toward Lucius' chest, and he waved his wand just in time to deflect it. Snape was close enough to see the Death Eater's face twist into an ugly sneer. A snarl of rage erupted from his lips, and the sickly green light of an Avada Kedavra spell tore from his wand and shot across the street, aimed at a rather shabbily-dressed wizard with hair the color of dampened sand.

 _Lupin. Slightly less predictable._ Severus wasn't sure which of the two was more distasteful. Lupin dodged Malfoy's killing curse by diving onto the cobblestone street.

"Incendio!" A jet of fire hissed past Malfoy's head and left a swath of black on the storefront behind him; a stray tongue of flame ignited the edge of his robe, however, and he threw it on the ground, momentarily distracted. Lupin scrambled to his feet and slipped inside the nearest shop, nearly tripping over his tattered robes in haste.

"Expulso!" Malfoy straightened and took aim; the shop's storefront window shattered, spraying tiny shards of glass in all directions. Snape deflected the minute projectiles and watched him cross the street in a few strides and barge through the shop's door with all the grace of an angry bull. More shouting followed. Severus ran to the edge of the street and slid down the wall, coming to rest at a crouch just below the shattered window. A gust of energy and a number of Dark Arts books and strange, broken trinkets came flying over his head, followed by an indistinct _agh_ as Malfoy, he assumed, was knocked off balance.

 _One of them will surely have the information I seek_ , Severus thought, gripping his wand tightly. Lupin was one of Black's best friends, and Lucius worked for the enemy to whom Sirius had given information. But who? Would Lupin have dared to betray the Potters, as Black had?

There came a ragged grunt from inside the shop, and a dull scraping sound, as though someone were peeling themselves from the wooden floor. "Give it up, Malfoy," Lupin's voice, laden with exhaustion, came drifting out of the window. "I have your wand. There's no need for more violence."

A cold, venomous laugh came trickling out in reply. "Oh, I think not. Do you really think the Dark Lord is vanquished?" A pause. "He'll return. And when he does, he'll rid this world of the _rest_ of you filthy, worthless Mudbloods."

There came a memory, trickling through Snape's mental defenses, like a slow and old song that was played out of tune.

 _I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!_

 _Humiliation and rage and cruelty and pain, just pain, as he realized what he had just said. Desperation, apologies, Lily's cold green eyes. Why were they cold? Lily's eyes were never cold, never, and yet…._

 _Red hair and splintered wood and green eyes forever shut._

 _He wished they had stayed cold instead._

Severus stood from where he had been crouched below the empty windowpane and directed his wand with all the steadiness of a man intent to destroy. Lupin's eyes widened in shock and something akin to fear. Malfoy, who was just an arm's length away, faced him with an entirely different expression; he was clearly relieved.

"Severus!" He exclaimed. "Kill him for me, would you?"

"With pleasure," Snape replied, and then he turned so that his wand was just centimeters away from the center of Malfoy's perfect forehead. "Stupefy." The point blank spell was so powerful that Lucius was sent flying across the room and into a dusty shelf full of pickled potions ingredients; there was a crash, an explosion of green liquids, and a shout of surprise and perhaps horror from Lupin. When the dust cleared, Snape could see a slime-covered Malfoy in a heap amongst the wreckage, one of his arms twisted at an unnatural angle.

"You...didn't kill him?" Lupin still had his wand at the ready, clearly unsure of the situation. Snape flicked his wand over as well; the two were at a standoff.

"No."

"Why not?"

Severus rolled his eyes. "Do try to keep up, werewolf. It would not be prudent to kill one of the Dark Lord's highest Death Eaters if I wish to remain an effective spy." Lupin's grip on his wand faltered; he watched Snape carefully, thinking.

"So it's true, then. You're a spy for Dumbledore."

"Silence!" Severus hissed, his black eyes glittering dangerously. There was a moment of quiet as the two men faced each other, the air between them taut with old grudges and a generous amount of distrust. Lupin was the first to lower his wand. Slowly, reluctantly, Snape did the same, but he kept it clutched tightly at his side. "Listen carefully, Lupin, because I will only ask you this once." He stood rigidly outside the broken window, a shadow in the deserted street. "Where is Sirius Black?"

Lupin's brow drew low in discontent. He looked as though he hadn't slept in days; dark, heavy circles lay like ghosts beneath his haunted eyes, waiting to swallow him whole. He clearly hadn't shaved in some time.

 _It's a full moon tomorrow_ , Snape remembered suddenly.

"I don't know," Lupin answered, "I've been looking—"

"You don't know." Severus drew the words out, punctuating each one with disgust. "Do not lie to me, werewolf."

Lupin sighed. "Why would I lie, Snape? Don't you think I want him caught? For what he did to James, to Harry? To Lily?"

 _Red hair and splintered wood and green eyes forever shut_.

Severus clenched his jaw until the pain it caused was distraction enough to dispel the image, allowing him a moment to rebuild his mental barriers.

"I may have a lead, but it's a long shot," Lupin conceded after a moment, running a hand through his unkempt hair.

"Tell me."

"It's guarded; few know of its existence, and fewer still how to enter. I can take you there," he hesitated, "but we'll have to hurry. It's getting dark, and I'll need to go to a safe house before tomorrow night."

Snape glared at him from across the room.

"You'll just have to trust me, Snape." Lupin sighed again. "If we're quick enough—and if I'm right—then we may be able to find him before tomorrow."

Severus lifted his wand and directed it at a thoroughly unconscious Malfoy across the room.

 _Obliviate_.

Lupin watched the silver thread of memory that contained Snape's betrayal as it slipped past him and toward Severus' wand, disappearing forever.

"It is unfortunate that I couldn't give him what he really deserves," Severus said, and then he slipped his wand into his sleeve and turned to go. "Well?" He glowered at Lupin, waiting for him to exit the shop. The werewolf stepped lightly over a pile of books, out the window and into the street, where he reluctantly pinched a minute portion of Snape's robes between two fingers, ignoring the man's irritated sneer, and sent them both to their destination with a _crack_ and a swirl of dust and old grudges.


	3. Chapter 3

As the wrenching in his gut subsided and the world turned rightside-up again, Snape found himself on a dark, grimy street in London, facing a row of rather unkempt muggle houses. He yanked his arm away from Lupin with a scowl.

"What, pray tell, are we looking for?" He asked, scanning the homes before them; he noticed that there was an apparent mistake in the numbering. They were standing before number eleven, which was flanked by number ten on one side and number thirteen on the other. There was no number twelve.

 _Well, that answers my question,_ he thought; such a mistake was too obvious to be nothing. Muggles loved their numbers, after all.

"I've taken us to Sirius' childhood home," Lupin said quietly, brushing a smear of ash from his robe that was likely left over from his scuffle with Lucius Malfoy. He studied the remnants of the black substance on his fingertips as though it held the answer to a question he had been brooding over for some time. Snape cleared his throat impatiently. Blinking, Lupin continued, "Now, he ran away when he was sixteen—"

"Unsurprising. The coward."

"— _however_ , because of his current situation, he doesn't have many places to hide. As much as he hated it here…." Lupin paused again, apparently lost in some unhappy memory. "It's a long shot, I'm afraid. But it's better than nothing."

Severus surveyed the shabby homes again, his lips set in a tight, doubtful frown. _A long shot, indeed_. "Who else might be here?"

"The Black family house-elf, Kreacher, assuming he is still alive." Lupin reached into an inner pocket of his robes and removed a small piece of something that looked suspiciously like chocolate. He slipped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

"Anyone else?" Snape asked, his dark eyebrows drawing low in irritation.

Lupin swallowed and drew his tongue briefly over his lips. "Normally, Sirius' mother would likely be here," he said, "but I happen to know that she holidays every year around this time, visiting family across Britain. Or, at least, she used to." He sighed and looked up at the sky, his shoulders relaxing slightly as, Snape assumed, he saw that the moon was hidden behind a thick curtain of clouds.

Severus peered up into the few dimly lit windows before them, where various muggles could be seen now and then as they flitted about their homes. "It is unwise to linger in the street, Lupin, so I suggest we get moving." Even in the darkness, they would be easily spotted if a muggle simply looked out the window.

"You're right," Lupin agreed, and took a step closer to the row of homes. Then he squared his shoulders and said quietly, "Number twelve, Grimmauld Place."

Snape watched as the missing house seemed to expand out of nowhere, squeezing in between numbers eleven and thirteen. It looked much the same as its neighbors, although it sported a doorknocker in the shape of a glinting silver serpent, and it seemed to be missing a letterbox and a keyhole. Its windows were dark, although whether that was because it was empty or because they had been enchanted to look so, Severus wasn't sure. Lupin pulled out his wand and shot Snape a sideways glance.

"Sirius brought me here once, during the Summer hols, when the rest of his family went vacationing for a week without him." He offered a sad, hopeful sort of smirk that did not reach his weary eyes. "Let's hope they haven't bothered to change the password after all these years." Then he tapped his wand on the door once, lightly, and murmured " _Toujours pur_." A soft _click_ followed. Snape readied his wand; Lupin nodded to him and, with an air of calm determination, carefully opened the door to the Black family's ancestral home.

* * *

The two wizards were standing at the end of a dark, narrow hallway. Severus flicked his wand. "Homenum revelio," he whispered, and was answered with silence.

"He isn't here, then," Lupin said, and it seemed to Snape as though the werewolf was growing older and more weary by the moment. "Well, we may yet find something of use," he added halfheartedly. Severus said nothing, his black eyes glinting in the darkness.

 _Lumos_. The hallway before them lit up as Snape raised his wand; Lupin did the same, adding his light to Severus', and the two started forward.

The magical glow cast long, strange shadows on the walls as the they passed a row of stuffed and mounted house-elf heads. Snape curled his lip in distaste; there was a strange mixture of metallic and floral scents in the air, as though everything had been polished twice over with some sort of industrial muggle cleaner. As far as he could see by the magical light, the eerie decor and the strange, dark wallpaper appeared spotless.

 _Looks like the house-elf has been hard at work,_ he thought, his eyes flicking to a closed door at the end of the hall. _But where is he?_

"That door leads to the kitchen," Lupin whispered from somewhere behind him. "Sirius had a bedroom on the fourth floor. We should start there."

"Very well." They reached the end of the hall and began making their way up a long staircase, its steps creaking just slightly beneath the their feet. The walls were lined with portraits of various pompous-looking pureblood wizards who, for the time being, were sound asleep.

There came a soft _pop_ from behind Snape as Lupin broke off another piece of chocolate, followed by a faint noise that he recognized as the sound of the werewolf's chewing. Severus rolled his eyes.

"Would you like—" Lupin began, but Snape interrupted him.

"No."

"Are you sure?" The tattered wizard pressed as they swept around a corner and up past the second floor. "Chocolate is good for the soul, Snape. I find it helps lift the spirits in times of great darkness."

"I have no soul," he snapped, and Lupin snorted behind him.

"I don't believe you."

Severus scoffed as they rounded another corner; dull light from a nearby window gave his robe the appearance of a cold, rippling stream. "Really. Shall I assume that you thought so when you and your gang of misfits attempted to torment me all those years at Hogwarts?"

There was a pause. "Now, Snape—"

"Don't try to justify yourself, werewolf," Severus growled, and his voice was tinged with venom. "I am in no mood to hear it." They reached the top of the staircase and moved down a small hallway containing two rooms. On one side, there was a door labeled _Regulus Arcturus Black_. Snape remembered the younger Death Eater well; he had betrayed the Dark Lord nearly two years ago, and it had cost him his life. Severus didn't know the details of the betrayal.

He wished he didn't know the details of his death, either. Such brutality was nauseating.

Sirius' bedroom was across the hallway. The door was slightly ajar. Lupin stood there for a moment, watching Snape with a thoughtful expression, the light from their wands illuminating the various long, jagged scars on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to change his mind. He pressed his lips into a thin line and gently pushed the bedroom door open instead.

The room was a mess; the bed sheets had been haphazardly thrown back, as though someone had forgotten to set an alarm and, consequently, had woken up in the sort of frantic rush that often comes when the word _late_ nags incessantly at the back of the mind. A red and gold striped scarf was draped around the far bedpost, although its once vibrant colors were beginning to fade. Various mismatched socks were strewn across the floor. Posters of bikini-clad women and motorcycles had been plastered to the wall, along with several Gryffindor banners.

"He's been here recently," Lupin said; he had a strange, pointed look on his face, as though he were focusing on something the size of a pinhead. Snape frowned.

"Are you sure this isn't from before he ran away? Somehow I doubt his parents would have ventured in here if they truly detested him, as you say."

"I'm sure." Lupin hesitated. "His scent is fresh."

Snape scuffed at an old Gryffindor sweater and curled his lip into a sneer. _One step behind._

Lupin ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "Let's look around. There has to be some clue."

They began sifting through the contents of the room, flipping through old books and sliding open desk drawers. Lupin picked up a tattered photo album from the top of Sirius' dresser; it contained only two pictures. Snape glanced over and saw that one of them was an old photo from their time at Hogwarts. Pettigrew, Black, Lupin and Potter waved and smiled at the photographer, the glossy expanse of the Black Lake sparkling behind them. Snape resisted the urge to blast the picture into oblivion with a well-aimed _confringo_. He settled instead for a stern glare and turned back to what he was doing, deciding that he didn't care what the second picture contained.

There was a small shelf in the far corner of the room; Severus examined the few books and trinkets it held, but soon lost interest, as it appeared to contain no clues. Lupin was still staring quietly at the photo album.

"Now is not the time for reminiscence, Lupin," he said, closing an old textbook with a _clap_ and setting it on the shelf. A small cloud of dust powdered the air in response, and he waved it away. Lupin looked up with a start.

"Right," he said, reluctantly closing the album and setting it aside. He began shuffling through a small pile of old newspaper clippings instead, most of them containing headlines about Quidditch teams from several years ago.

After quite some time of rummaging about the room (Severus never wanted to see another Gryffindor sock, scarf, or sweater again), Lupin straightened from where he had been crouched over the lowest dresser drawer and sighed heavily. The sun was starting to rise; dim light was filtering through a window down the hall, and they no longer needed to use their wands to navigate around the room. "Snape," he said, closing the drawer and standing slowly, "I'm afraid I won't be able to stay much longer. I'll need to travel to a safehouse soon…." He trailed off, a deep frown drawing his features downward, as he no doubt thought of the pain he would have to endure come nightfall.

"Very well," Severus answered dismissively. His back remained toward the other wizard; he was reaching under Sirius' pillow as a last resort. Lupin sighed again.

"I'll be downstairs. It's possible we missed something," the werewolf added in a tone that belied his skepticism, and then he quickly left the room.

Snape was about to follow when his fingers found purchase on what felt like a small envelope. Gripping it, he pulled it out from under the pillow and into the dim light of the bedroom.

 _A letter_ , he thought with some surprise; it had no distinguishing marks on the outside. Lifting the already-opened seal, Severus removed the parchment within. He recognized the elegant, looping handwriting immediately, as though each letter had been drawn, not written. A familiar tightness gripped his chest; slowly, he sank to one knee, then two.

 _Dear Padfoot,_

 _Thank you, thank you, for Harry's birthday present! It was his favourite by far. One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick, he looked so pleased with himself, I'm enclosing a picture so you can see. You know it only rises about two feet off the ground, but he nearly killed the cat and he smashed a horrible vase Petunia sent me for Christmas (no complaints there). Of course, James thought it was funny, says he's going to be a great Quidditch player, but we've had to pack away all the ornaments and make sure we don't take our eyes off him when he gets going._

 _We had a very quiet birthday tea, just us and old Bathilda, who has always been sweet to us, and who dotes on Harry. We were so sorry you couldn't come, but the Order's got to come first, and Harry's not old enough to know it's his birthday anyway! James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell—also, Dumbledore's still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much. Wormy was here last weekend, I thought he seemed down, but that was probably the news about the McKinnons; I cried all evening when I heard._

 _Bathilda drops in most days, she's a fascinating old thing with the most amazing stories about Dumbledore, I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he knew! I don't know how much to believe, actually, because it seems incredible that Dumbledore could ever have been friends with Gellert Grindelwald. I think her mind's going, personally!_

 _Lots of love,_

 _Lily_

Severus stared at those last two lines, those three words and that one name, the name he loved, until his eyes lost focus and he could no longer see them properly. His breath came in slow, ragged draws.

 _Lots of love,_

 _Lily._

 _Red hair and splintered wood and green eyes forever shut_.

He blinked once, twice. There was a picture on the floor; he must have dropped it when the letter unfolded. Still clutching the parchment with one hand, Snape reached out with his other and carefully plucked it from the carpet. He turned it over. A small boy with a mess of black hair was in the foreground, zipping around on a toy broomstick; behind him, James Potter looked on proudly, and to Potter's right, there stood Lily.

 _Lily_.

She was laughing. She looked so very normal there, so very happy.

So very alive.

Severus clutched desperately at the photo until the muscles in his hand began to ache; he was trembling. Slowly, the tremor seemed to travel up his arm and into his chest, shaking his very core and sending the room spinning out of focus. His ragged breathing turned to gasps. It was raining somehow, raining inside, and the drops _tapped_ against the picture and the letter in his hands. It ran down his face and when he opened his mouth to gasp for air, he tasted salt.

* * *

Snape did not know how long he had been kneeling there on the bedroom floor, staring down at the letter and the photograph, when he heard Lupin call from downstairs. He took in a trembling breath and looked for a moment longer into Lily's face. There came one last, lingering _tap_ as the strange rain drizzled to a stop, and then he carefully tore the photo and the letter in two, taking the image of Lily and the last two lines containing her name and her love. Severus slipped them into a small pocket in the folds of his robe, where they rested just above his heart. Then he tossed the other pieces across the floor and under Sirius' dresser, stood, and swept out of the room.

Snape's mental barriers had been carefully reconstructed by the time he made it downstairs. He stood rigidly in the doorway to the kitchen, his tall, dark figure casting a looming shadow across the floor. Lupin stood with his back to him on the far side of the room; his wand was directed at a small, snout-nosed house-elf who wore the scrunched expression of someone who may have just smelled sour milk.

"This is Kreacher," Lupin said. "You'll want to hear what he has to say." The house-elf muttered something under his breath and shot Lupin a poisonous glare.

"Filthy blood traitors," he said, curling his lip. "When my Mistress returns, she'll have your heads."

Snape's eyes flicked between the two figures across the room, waiting. Lupin tightened his grip on his wand. "I told Kreacher that you worked with his Master, Regulus, and that we are hunting Sirius. There is only one thing he hates more than trespassers and 'blood traitors.' Isn't that right, Kreacher?"

At the sound of Sirius' name, the look on Kreacher's face went from sour to positively volatile. "Master Sirius, the worst of the blood traitors, the filthy, so much pain he caused my Mistress, so much grief…." He trailed off, muttering and wringing his hands.

"Kreacher," Lupin said, and his tone was stern but somewhat gentle, "Tell Snape what you told me. Tell him what you know about Sirius." There came a strange, grating noise, and Severus realized that it was coming from the house-elf's throat.

"Master Sirius had the gall to come back to Mistress's home. He locked Kreacher in the cupboard and defiled everything with his nasty presence." His glassy eyes rolled to Severus, who was watching him sternly from where he stood in the doorway. "He stayed in his filthy room for most of the time he was here. Kreacher never did clean it after he left. Nasty, nasty."

"Where did he go?" Lupin prodded, his wand still at the ready.

Kreacher blinked once, slowly. "Master Sirius did not know that Kreacher could hear him when he came down the stairs. He was talking to himself, saying that he must find someone called 'Wormtail'. He slammed the door and Kreacher has not heard him come back."

"Who is Wormtail?" Snape finally spoke, directing his question to Lupin. The werewolf cleared his throat.

"Peter Pettigrew," he answered, frowning. "It's a...nickname we gave him during our time at Hogwarts. Sirius must be going after him."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "I assume you know where Pettigrew should be?"

"Yes. He was sent to a safehouse in London. I'll give you the address, but…I'm afraid I can't go with." The turmoil within him was roiling behind his eyes. "I want Sirius caught; I want him to answer for his crimes. But it isn't safe for me to be out. There's not enough time." He turned back to the house-elf. "Thank you. You have been most helpful, Kreacher."

The elf opened his mouth in surprise, as he was clearly not accustomed to kindness, but he quickly righted himself and settled his features back into a sour expression. "Kreacher will allow you to leave—only because you have promised to catch Master Sirius. But never again."

Lupin gave him a curt nod and turned to follow Snape out of the room, through the front door and into the street. The sun was high, though it was covered by dull grey clouds. A light snow was beginning to fall. The two crossed the street and stood behind the shelter of some bushes and trees, which served as the border to a small park. Lupin tugged his robes tighter around himself; his breath came out in thin, wispy clouds.

"I assume you plan on killing Sirius when you catch up to him," he said, staring past Snape and into the distance.

"Yes."

Lupin pressed his lips into a tight frown. "I'm going to ask you to turn him in. There may yet be hope for him…."

"There is no hope for him," Severus said, his voice aligned with the cold air. "I will give him what he deserves." He was suddenly and acutely aware of the letter and the photo in his robes; he felt as though they would burn a hole through his chest, and before he could stop himself, Severus reached and gently rested a hand against the pocket where he knew they resided. He tightened his jaw and let his hand fall to his side again. "He deserves to die."

"Maybe," Lupin said, his face etched with lines of scars and sorrows. "I just can't believe...what he did…."

 _Red hair and splintered wood and green eyes forever shut_.

Snape looked away, up and into the grey sky, struggling to think of something—anything—else.

"Please promise me that you will remember, when the time comes, that we all deserve far worse than what we have been dealt," said Lupin, so quietly that at first he almost missed it.

Severus turned his black eyes back to Lupin, his dark gaze level and sharp. The werewolf sighed and ran a hand through his hair. His eyes were rimmed with red, and he was shaking. "Here." He reached into his robes and scribbled an address onto a wrinkled chocolate wrapper. He handed it reluctantly to Severus. "I need to go," he said, and then, "But, for what it's worth, Snape, I'm sorry for how you were treated at Hogwarts. It was wrong of my friends. It was wrong of me to allow it to continue."

Snape blinked once, twice, his expression set and stoic. "It is worth nothing to me, werewolf. Now, go." Lupin did not seem surprised; with a brisk nod, he turned to leave. He was halfway into the street and only a moment from disapparating when Severus spoke again. "I have heard of a promising potioneer in London by the name of Damocles Belby," he said, the deep baritone of his voice drifting through the cold air. "It is said that he is working on a potion with properties meant to help werewolves keep their minds when they transform."

Lupin stopped; he tipped his head up until he was looking at the sky. "Damocles Belby," he murmured.

"Yes."

There came a soft chuckle from Lupin's chest. It rippled through the cold, a strange, honest, warm thing in the middle of a dark and cruel world. "You see, Snape? I told you: you do have a soul." And then he disapparated with a dull _crack_ and a whir of snow and empty space.

Severus stood there for a moment, a shadow in the cold daylight, breathing in and out, in and out. He rested his hand once more against his chest, where the photograph of Lily and her signature were hidden. Then he looked down at the address on the crinkled chocolate wrapper, committing it to memory, and felt the wrenching pull in his stomach as the world around him twisted and he disapparated away.

* * *

 **A/N: The letter from Lily to Sirius is taken directly from the seventh book. I realize that we don't exactly know when Snape finds the letter in canon, as it is briefly mentioned when Harry is given Snape's memories in the seventh book, but I decided to include it here for the purposes of my story. My apologies for any technical details I may have missed or gotten wrong. As always, everything belongs to JK Rowling. Thank you to everyone who has read/commented/etc; I appreciate it!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi all. As of right now, my plan is to make this the last chapter, although I have a few ideas for possible future stories. Thanks to everyone who has read/reviewed/etc. As always, all rights go to J.K. Rowling. Enjoy!**

* * *

Severus was standing before an old, dilapidated house on a cramped street near the outskirts of London. It had a sort of sagging, tired look, as though it had just released a very long sigh and only had the strength to stand because its neighbors were so close that they provided support on either side. There were no lights on.

The sun was high, now. A few muggles wandered the streets, leaving faint tracks through the light dusting of snow; if they found Snape's presence unusual, they showed no sign of it. Pulling his black cloak around him for warmth, he stepped closer to the door of Pettigrew's alleged hiding place. There was a smattering of footprints at the base of the steps. The snow was smeared and brushed in places, as though someone had been scrambling on the cold, slick ground. Severus knelt to get a better look.

 _Two sets of prints,_ he observed, his black hair drifting forward as he bent over. The tracks separated a few feet away, heading in the same direction. Snape looked back to the front door. It was slightly ajar. _They left in a hurry_ , he thought, straightening and setting his face toward the tracks. It was likely that Black had already caught up to Pettigrew; with a sneer, Severus struck off after the two sets of footprints. His shadowy figure and billowing cloak stood out starkly against the haze of falling snow, a trailing blot of ink on fresh parchment. He rounded two corners and cut across a crowded square. There was a narrow alley on the far side; Severus weaved through a group of lingering Muggles and ducked beneath an old, torn awning that partially concealed its entrance. The tracks led through.

He was halfway through the alley when there came the bustling sound of quickened footsteps and hushed voices. Snape hid himself behind a stack of empty apple crates; through one of the slots, he watched a group of wizards rush past the far end of the alley.

 _Aurors._ Snape counted five of them. As the sound of their footsteps faded, he released a long sigh through his teeth and rested his hand against the cold, unyielding brick wall to his right. The presence of the Aurors complicated things, but it did not change his objective. He let his gaze drift back to the trail he had been following and frowned.

The tracks ended abruptly at a mass of flattened snow, where they were so overlapped and closely distributed that he could not tell them apart.

 _There must have been a scuffle_. Snape's black gaze flicked to a tuft of dark-colored hair lying in the snow to his right; reaching down, he plucked it from the ground and turned it between two fingers. It was only about an inch in length, slightly wavy and coarse. Such a large clump of hair would have had to be torn out of a person's scalp, and yet….

 _No blood_. Severus let the tuft fall from his fingers and back to the cold ground, watching it catch just slightly on a sudden breeze before drifting the rest of the way. He looked past the edge of the flattened area and saw a new set of tracks.

Tracks that had likely been made by a rather large dog and some sort of rodent.

Snape pressed his lips into a thin line. _Animagi. It would seem there is no limit to Black's affinity for irritating me._ He couldn't say he was surprised, not truly, apart from the fact that it took a great amount of time and effort to become an Animagus, and he had always correlated the name "Sirius Black" with the phrase "perpetually lazy". Regardless, it had been no secret at Hogwarts that Potter and his band of miscreants were among the top of their class in Transfiguration.

Snape glowered at the trail of evidence for a moment before following it through the remaining stretch of alleyway and into the street, where it headed left.

 _The Aurors are going in the wrong direction_ , he thought with some relief, and quickened his pace. Snow continued to fall; Severus cut through another square and rounded two corners. The rodent's shallow tracks were still visible, so he knew he couldn't be far behind. He darted through one more alley and navigated his way across a crowded street. At the far edge, within the shadow of a snow-dusted overhang, Severus paused. The clear, ringing sound of a dog's bark came cutting through the cold air.

 _Nearly there_. Snape struck off again. Almost at a run now, he vaulted over a low stack of wooden crates and headed down a quiet side street. He could see that it opened up into another relatively large—and busy—square; Severus paused once again at the end of the street, his back pressed against the brick wall of an old apartment building. The barking had come from the far end of the square. Now, it was a low, threatening growl. Snape readied his wand. Before he stepped around the corner and into the square, however, the growl shifted again; there was the scrabbling sound of claws on cobblestone, a shrill, high-pitched squeal, and then the sound of two men shouting. Severus hesitated.

 _Surely they did not just change forms in such a populated area?_ But the resulting shouts of astonishment and a few cries of fear confirmed that they had, indeed. _Fools_. Snape tightened his grip on his wand.

"Enough, Peter!" Sirius Black's exhausted voice rang across the square, where he had, apparently, cornered Pettigrew. Bile rose in the back of Snape's throat. He was running through all of the different curses he would use on Black as he prepared to step around the corner once again.

There was a sudden blur of sound and movement; Muggles came rushing around the corner and past him, so blind with fear and confusion that they failed to notice Snape's tall, brooding figure. Pettigrew's trembling voice bleated above the commotion: "Lily and James, Sirius, how could you?" Then a blast of fire and energy and shattered cobblestone blew across the square; Black shouted something incoherent, and Severus pushed away from the wall in order to avoid a slew of falling debris. The ground shook; screams were cut short, and dust and snow and stone fell together on the broken ground.

It took a moment for Snape to steady himself and for the ringing in his ears to subside. The air was suddenly and irrevocably still.

Unnaturally still.

Severus finally stepped around the corner and was met with carnage. Bodies—or what was left of them—were strewn about the remnants of the square, cluttered together with slabs of fractured stone and burning debris, like so many funeral pyres. The sickening scents of charred flesh, blood-tinged dust, and ash were almost suffocating. Only one figure remained standing at the far end of the square.

"No. No!" The man's voice cut through the silence like a hot knife. His back was to Severus; filthy hands were clutching at his hair, his shoulders slumped and shaking, the dregs of an old cloak brushing across the charred ground. Severus raised his wand.

"Sirius Black," He said with cold, calculated calm, and the man spun around. Black's face was streaked grey with tears and ash. His eyes were wild, desperate. His expression twisted into some strange mixture of cynicism and hatred when he recognized Snape, and he, too, readied his wand.

"You're too late, _Snivellus_ ," he jeered, hissing through his teeth. "You're always too late." Snape curled his lip in disgust.

 _Crucio_. The crackling spear of red light disintegrated as Black deflected at the last moment, staggering backwards. Snape fired again. And again. Sirius stumbled further back until he was against a building. Breathing heavily, he struggled to regain his balance.

"Expelliarmus!" He cried, but Severus deflected the spell with a flick of his wrist. A jet of energy came following after; Snape narrowly dodged it and felt the ground shake as Black's _expulso_ collided with the remnants of a makeshift fruit stand across the square. A third blast landed in front of Snape's feet, throwing him backwards. Sirius scrambled toward him with the intent of pressing his attack, but Severus was already getting up. He wiped a trickle of blood from his lips.

 _Sectumsempra_! Black cried out in pain as Snape's cutting spell sliced through his shoulder, producing a spray of blood. Severus attacked a second time, cutting open a wound just above the right knee, and Sirius' cry of pain was tinged with rage. He fell to one knee. Severus drew closer; the surrounding fires were reflected in his black eyes. "Surely you did not believe that you would escape punishment?" He asked, his voice dangerously low. Black moved to raise his wand again until a fresh wound opened on the top of his hand and across his fingers, and he dropped it on the shattered ground. Snape retrieved it with a flick of his wrist and looked on in cruel distaste. Black coughed and spat blood onto the ground at Snape's feet.

"Punishment," he sneered, wheezing, "Punishment for what? Is your childhood grudge really worth so much to you?"

Fury boiled in Snape's chest. He stepped closer, so close that he was able to jab his wand up and under Black's chin, forcing him to stand again. "Your incompetence may have served you well in the past, Black, but not today. How _dare_ you even _think_ of claiming innocence." Sirius' eyes flickered with brief confusion. He pressed the opposite hand against his bleeding shoulder and drew his tongue across his lips. Then the realization hit him, and he opened his mouth and laughed an empty, mirthless laugh. Snape drove the wand further into the vulnerable skin beneath Black's chin, cutting the laugh short. Black choked.

"You—" he struggled to breathe, "You think I betrayed James and Lily," he managed to say, and a cold smile remained on his lips. "Well, well. How does it feel to know—to know that you've caught the wrong man, Snivellus?"

 _Crucio_. Black's body erupted into spasms as he collapsed on the ground, writhing and snarling in pain. Snape loomed over him like the shadow of death. "Oh, how I shall enjoy ending your miserable life," he growled, pressing his boot against the deep gash on Black's shoulder, "But first—" Severus leaned forward so that he could see a tear spill from Sirius' eye, "—I want to hear you say it." Black choked and sputtered on the ground beneath him. "Admit your guilt."

"I...never…." Sirius struggled to speak through the effects of the agonizing curse, his eyes flashing with wild rage. Snape leaned closer, his teeth bared in hatred, and pressed harder into Black's wound. Blood spilled from the laceration and onto the ash-covered ground.

"Admit. Your. Guilt." The deep baritone of his Snape's voice was spiked with venom. He let Black writhe for several moments longer, waiting, but Sirius gave him no answer aside from his sputtering and cries of pain. Severus released the spell with a growl; Black wheezed below him, blood trickling from his nose and mouth.

"You're...wasting your time," he coughed. "He's getting away...because...because you can't see past the end of that huge nose." Snape leaned into his shoulder again, and Black howled in pain.

"Do you really think you are in a position to be making jokes, Black?" Sirius regained some of his composure and sucked in a ragged breath.

"Fine. Fine. Why don't you look for yourself, then, Snivellus?" He looked past him, up into the cloudy sky. It was still snowing. "That's what you do, right? Mind magic?" His eyes slid back to Severus.

Snape hesitated, but only for a moment.

 _Legilimens._ Normally, he navigated the minds of others carefully and concisely, as one might do when searching for a lost key or the final piece to a delicate puzzle. The mind was, after all, a complex thing, not unlike the most intricate and composite potions and their respective methods of brewing.

But _today_ did not coincide with _normally_.

Severus plunged forward and into Black's thoughts like a hurricane. Images came swirling past him: a blonde, pale-skinned witch with pursed lips and shrewd eyes, looking down on a young Sirius Black with an expression of cold disapproval; an eleven-year-old Potter clapping Sirius on the back after being sorted into Gryffindor; Remus Lupin, heavily bandaged, looking up at a group of three boys from a hospital bed; a blur of trees and the sound of huffing breaths as a stag, a rat, and a large, black dog went running by in pursuit of a werewolf. Snape brushed all of these aside and navigated further, searching for more recent memories. Darkness, skirmishes with Death Eaters, rushed meals with members of the Order. A rush of cold air as Aurors swept by on their brooms. Black standing in an abandoned house, gazing down at a photograph of Frank and Alice Longbottom.

From somewhere amidst the fray of memories, Severus caught the high, weak sound of Peter Pettigrew's voice.

"But Sirius, I don't understand. Aren't you the better choice?" Pettigrew and Black were standing in a plain, dusty room cluttered with old furniture and towers of books. Black was leaning against a desk on the far wall.

"Yes, but that's exactly why _you_ must be the one to do it, Wormtail!" He had clearly been trying to convince the smaller man for some time. "This way, only you, me, James, and Lily will know who the real Secret Keeper is." Pettigrew fiddled with the cuffs of his sleeves, his beady eyes flicking about the room.

"Al—alright, then."

"Be strong, Peter. James and Lily need you. Harry needs you."

"You're right." Pettigrew straightened his back and took a deep breath. "I won't let them down. I—I'll be their Secret Keeper, Padfoot." Sirius pressed his lips into a thin smile and rested a hand on Pettigrew's shoulder with a slight nod.

 _Black was telling the truth, then... Pettigrew was the one who betrayed the Potters_. Snape withdrew from the memory, a strange mixture of anger and determination rising in his throat. He was preparing to release the spell when the memory of a flash of red hair caught his eye, and he paused.

Lily, James, and Sirius were standing in Dumbledore's office; the room was dimly lit, and the old wizard was hunched over his desk, a weary hand pressed to his brow. When he spoke, his voice seemed ageless: old and tired and laden with far-off things.

"I...have a place in mind. It is well-guarded and relatively isolated. This location—in conjunction with a myriad of protective spells and a Secret Keeper—should be quite safe, indeed." His eyes flickered behind his half-moon glasses. "I trust that you needn't be reminded of how important it is to choose a trustworthy Secret Keeper?"

"Of course not." James Potter answered him from across his desk. Snape glowered at the messy-haired, bespectacled rival of his youth. Then he positioned himself beside Dumbledore so that he could see Lily's face more clearly. In the memory, she was not _red hair and splintered wood and green eyes forever shut_. Instead, she was Lily. Just Lily. He memorized the lines of her face, the slope of her jaw, the tight, worried set of her mouth; he studied the way the green in her eyes went from the color of oak leaves in spring to the gold-tinged glow of sunlight on grass.

He wished he could speak with her.

He wished this image was real, instead of the one that would be forever burned into his mind and his chest and his soul.

"Dumbledore," Potter interrupted Snape's cadence of thoughts, "how did Voldemort find out about this prophecy?" Severus found himself suddenly holding his breath.

"That is not for me to say," the old wizard answered. Potter scowled at him.

"It's alright, James," Lily spoke for the first time since entering the memory, and Snape leaned forward as if to physically catch her words, "at least we've been warned. We—"

"I'll tell you how he found out." Sirius interjected, his eyes flashing. James gave him a questioning look. "It was Snape. Good old Snivellus Greasy was eavesdropping that day at the Hog's Head." Lily's eyes widened in shock.

"No, he—"

"I heard it from half the people in the pub. I'm right, aren't I?" Sirius gave Dumbledore a pointed stare, waiting for confirmation, but the headmaster was silent. He dipped his hand into the near-empty dish of lemon drops on his desk. Fawkes, who had been quietly preening his feathers atop his perch, stretched his wings and drifted over to Dumbledore. He landed on his master's shoulder and gave a soft _click_ of his beak. Sighing, Dumbledore casually offered him a lemon drop, and Fawkes chirped excitedly before swallowing it whole. Lily's expression softened. When she spoke, her voice was only a whisper.

"Is it true, Albus?" She asked. Dumbledore blinked several times as if to remove himself from a reverie. His eyes drifted up to her; Snape thought he detected a spark of dread there.

"Yes," he confirmed. "Yes, it is true." Lily's eyes fell to the floor. Sirius scoffed from across the room. James ran a hand through his unruly hair and snorted derisively.

"Well, I'm hardly surprised. The slimy—"

" _However_ ," Dumbledore interrupted James, "I believe that Severus Snape deeply regrets his actions. He is, after all, the one who warned me." He leveled James with a penetrating stare.

"Yeah, right." Sirius was rubbing a smudge of dirt from one of his hands, his forehead scrunched in concentration. "The only thing Snape regrets is that he won't have the chance to off us himself."

"I agree. It's a little late to change faces now, I should think," James chimed in. Dumbledore sighed again.

"That's enough, you two." Lily finally looked up, and her green eyes were clear. Clear, and sad. She gazed past Dumbledore and even though Severus knew she could not see him, he felt as though she was staring right through him, through the darkness and down to his very core. He held his breath. "Even after everything, I thought...I believed…." She drifted off, and the room was quiet for some time. Severus waited.

 _Believed what?_

But Lily didn't finish. Instead, she looked back to her husband, who had been watching her with something akin to pity. "We should go," she said simply. "I'm sure that by now Hagrid has more than his hands full with Harry." James nodded, and the three turned to leave.

"Lily." Severus spoke her name aloud and was shocked to see her stop in front of the door until he realized that Dumbledore had spoken at the same time. Lily turned back to face the headmaster.

"I believed that he wasn't truly lost," she said. And then the room turned to dust and memories pressed in around Severus; gasping, he removed himself from Black's mind as one might come up for air after a high dive.

* * *

The scent of blood and ash returned in full force; Snape's head was throbbing from being thrown onto the street during their skirmish; it had occurred only moments before, but to Severus it felt like a lifetime. He blinked to clear his mind and began reconstructing his mental barriers. Through the fog of destruction and blood and _I believed that he wasn't truly lost_ , Snape heard a piercing, unsettling sound.

Sirius Black was laughing. It was a high, empty noise, almost unnaturally so. "You caught the wrong man, Snape. The wrong man! All of this for nothing!" He devolved into chaotic laughter again.

 _It will take some time for the trauma to wear off_ , Snape thought. Having one's mind invaded was not a pleasant experience.

Severus gazed at the wounds inflicted by his cutting spell with a cold expression, black eyes glittering in the coming darkness. Then, slowly, he leaned closer and began to trace his wand over the lacerations. He uttered the incantation for the counterpart to _sectumsempra_ , a healing spell, and watched as the deep wounds knitted themselves back together. Sirius continued to laugh maniacally.

"The Aurors will be here momentarily," Severus muttered when he had finished. "I suggest that you leave before they arrive." He dropped Black's wand a few feet from where he was still sprawled on the cold ground.

"Let them come," Sirius growled, struggling to pick himself up. "I've failed. Anyway, why don't you just kill me, Snape? Huh? _Snivellus_?" His eyes flashed wildly.

Severus gazed at him stoically, a cold flame sparking behind his eyes. He had spent the last two days hunting Sirius because he believed that he was to blame for Lily's death. He had spent years hating James Potter for stealing Lily from him, and now for failing to protect her when Voldemort had arrived. He would spend the rest of his life hating the Dark Lord, who had struck Lily down for no reason other than for being in the way. All of these and more were among the things Severus Snape hated. But after everything, he could not escape the realization that he himself had set in motion the events which had led to Lily's death. He was the one who told Voldemort about the prophecy. He was the one who truly betrayed her.

And so, in the end, there was nothing Severus Snape hated more…

...than _himself_.

Snape did not answer Sirius. Instead, he looked up at the sky, where the sun was beginning to set through the fog of ash and snow. He would, perhaps, go after Peter Pettigrew. But not tonight. And so, as the sound of shouting and rushed footsteps came echoing closer, Snape closed his eyes and disapparated with a _crack_ and a blur of ash and embers.

* * *

It was well into the night by the time Snape finally shoveled the last bit of dirt over Lily's grave. He had (rather unceremoniously) used magic to dump soil over James', although he had kept his word to Dumbledore by at least burying the two beside each other. It had taken him hours to dig Lily's by hand, and another few to lower her coffin and cover it, painstakingly slow, with shovel by shovel full of soil.

Now, Severus stood leaning against his shovel, watching the snow as it drifted down to coat the fresh dirt. He stretched out a hand; snowflakes fell quietly into his palm, then melted away just as quickly: there and gone, there and gone. It was so very silent in Godric's Hollow. It was almost as though the night itself was mourning, offering these tiny gifts, countless times over. Snape released a long sigh and watched his breath curl upward and away. Then he looked back down to Lily's grave. It was too plain. He twirled his wand once and a flower (a lily, naturally), sprouted from the soil, small and delicate, yet somehow unspeakably lovely.

 _That's better_ , he thought, and his chest ached. Severus removed the torn photograph of Lily from his robes and gazed at it for a moment. His hands were shaking. He told himself it was from the cold, the exhaustion after hours of shoveling.

"My sweet Lily," he breathed, "Forgive me." He replaced the picture and again surveyed the snow-dusted grave, such a final thing, with its delicate flower, so out of place and yet so perfect. "For I shall never forgive myself."

Some time later, there came the sound of sweeping footsteps through the snow.

"Ah, Severus. I thought I might find you here." Dumbledore came and stood beside him. He blinked down at the graves, his eyes twinkling softly behind his glasses. "Such a lovely flower," he said.

"Not now, Albus." The headmaster stretched out his hand, as Snape had done earlier, and watched snowflakes drift into his palm.

"Forgive me, my boy—"

"Do not call me that."

"Very well. I was only going to say that I presumed you could use some company. You do realize how cold it is this evening, yes? I hope you weren't planning to stay out here all night." Snape ignored him. His gaze was still directed forward, staring forlornly at the lily he had conjured. "Come now, Severus. Your countenance is depressing enough to bring even my spirits down." Snape cut him a sideways glare.

"What do you want, Dumbledore?" He growled. The headmaster tugged at a spare thread on his robe, frowning.

"You are still planning to return to Hogwarts as Potions Master, I hope?" He lifted his chin; snow sparkled on his long, trailing beard. Snape was quiet for a moment.

"I already told you I would."

"Most excellent." Dumbledore pressed his lips into a tight smile, although it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I must confess, Severus," he said, "that I was hoping you might be inclined to step away for a bit. There is something I wish to show you." Snape repositioned his hands on the shovel and tapped it lightly against the ground, leaving shallow marks in the snow.

"I would rather not." He ceased his tapping and rested the shovel against a nearby tree.

"It will still be here when you get back," the headmaster said, his voice low and cautious. Severus crossed his arms over his chest and produced a quiet sigh, the vapor of his breath dissipating in the night air.

"Yes," he muttered. His voice was sharp with bitterness. "It will always be here….Very well, Albus. But this had better be quick."

"Not to worry, Severus. Take my arm." Snape did so with a roll of his eyes and a derisive snort. The gut-wrenching tug in his stomach took hold, brief but intense, as Dumbledore apparated and the two wizards appeared at their destination.

* * *

They were gazing up at a simple two-story house with a neat walkway and a well-tended bed of flowers beside the door (although a bit frosted—it was October, after all); the lawn was so flawless in appearance that Severus mused it would be considered a crime to tread upon it. Below the porch light was a large number "4".

"Ah, Privet Drive," Dumbledore sighed, "such a quaint little street." Snape gazed down the row of cookie-cutter homes and scowled.

"I assume you have a good reason for bringing me to the home of Petunia Dursley?" Severus asked; he didn't bother to keep the distaste out of his voice.

"Oh yes, quite. Now, let's see…." Dumbledore approached the house and pressed his ear to the front door. "Ah, I thought so. Do you hear it?" Snape moved to the door as well and leaned close. There, although it was relatively faint through the thick door and brick walls, came the sound of a small child crying. Evidently it was not loud enough to wake up the Dursleys; all of the upstairs lights were off. Dumbledore peered over at a window above the flower bed, where dim light was filtering through. It looked to be near the location where the cries were originating from. To get to it, they would need to walk across the grass. Dumbledore hesitated at the edge of the walkway.

"Here, Albus," said Snape. He brushed past the older wizard and deliberately stamped a path through the pristine grass. For good measure, he took an extra step and flattened a clump of flowers beneath the window, kicking soil onto the lawn. "It is quite safe now."

"Oh, dear." Dumbledore looked slightly aghast, although his eyes sparkled with laughter. He made his way down Snape's path of destruction and squinted through the window.

In a battered, clearly-secondhand crib, was a small child with a mess of black hair. His face was blotched and lined with tears; tiny hands rubbed at his squinting eyes, and his onesie was at least two sizes too large. A jagged, lightning-shaped scar was clearly visible on his forehead. Snape settled Dumbledore with a venomous glare.

"This is what you brought me here to see? The blubbering offspring of James Potter?" Dumbledore released a heavy sigh.

"Now, Severus. Do try to be civil." He pressed a hand to the window. "I'm asking you to look at Harry. Just...try to _see_ him, Severus, apart from your opinion of James." Snape growled in irritation and turned back to the window. He pressed his lips together in a thin line, focusing. Harry was facing them, sniffling, his cheeks still blotched and damp. His tiny hands gripped the the rails of his crib. Unruly black hair seemed to stand up in every direction, as though pulled by invisible threads. Even at such a young age, he looked so like his father. And yet...Harry opened his eyes and looked straight at Snape.

 _Red hair and splintered wood and green eyes forever shut_.

But these eyes were not shut. They looked through Snape, through the darkness and down to his very core.

"He...has his mother's eyes." Severus murmured, more to himself than to Dumbledore. Then he tore himself away from the window, across the battered grass, and into the street. The headmaster followed slowly behind.

"Severus?" Dumbledore stopped a few feet away. Snape's back was to him, arms crossed over his chest, his long shadow cast diagonally across the cold ground. He was silent for a moment.

"You are asking me to look into this boy's face every day—those eyes. Have you any idea?" The headmaster looked up into the sky, where the moon was bright and unfettered by clouds. Snow had not yet reached this area.

"What you must realize is that, while Lily is gone—"

Here, Snape sucked in a sharp breath, his shoulders rigid and tight.

"—her son _lives_. I wanted you to see his eyes, Severus. By swearing to protect him, you swear to honor Lily's memory." Snape was silent, his breath coming in shallow wisps. "Surely there is more to life than a cold grave and a myriad of regrets?"

"Not for me." Severus turned around, his cloak flaring about him like the wings of a great bat. "Save your sentiments, Albus. I told you I would protect the boy—for Lily—and I will keep my word. But do not presume that you can change me. My thoughts and my regrets are my own." Dumbledore held Snape's black gaze for a long moment, and then he sighed.

"Very well, then. You'll have to forgive my prying. It is in my nature to fix things, I think."

"Fix things? Or manipulate them?"

"Ah. Perhaps a bit of both." Dumbledore smiled sadly. "Well," he said, "I suppose I should leave you to your thoughts, then. A lemon drop and a cup of tea would do quite nicely once I return to my office. Yes...quite nicely, indeed. Goodnight, Severus." And with a snap of his fingers, the aged headmaster disapparated.

Snape released a heavy sigh and watched his breath disappear into the night air. He looked up at the sky, where the moon was. It had been quite some time since he had last seen it; cloud cover had been almost constant over the last few weeks. He stood in the street for some time, lost in thought, and then he, too, apparated, to a snow-laden town where a cold grave and a myriad of regrets awaited him.


End file.
